


Like a World Reshaping Itself

by SilverStark



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: (brief Hydra Steve), Dubcon Kissing, F/M, Genderbending, Hydra Steve Rogers, Non-Consensual Body Modification, alwaysagirl!tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 09:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13187523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverStark/pseuds/SilverStark
Summary: Inspired by laireshi's "Cosmic Cube and the Power of the Heart"-This is a fix-it ficlet based for the Hydra-Cap and the comatose Tony situations. Both angsty and fluffy. Mind the warnings.





	Like a World Reshaping Itself

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Cosmic Cube and the Power of the Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11778696) by [laireshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi). 



> A sort of fix-it ficlet, with some gender-bending of Tony as a person who identifies and always has as female. Mind the warnings! There is some sexual activity (not sex) done with dubious consent, as well as a short discussion of that activity.

“A gift for you,” not-Steve said, and the world went blue-

-and painful.

She screamed, and the sound ripped through her throat-

Every sensation occurred to her at once. The sensation of breathing, the pull of the skin over her ribs and the rush through her airway, the temperature of the air against her skin, and the floor beneath her feet. And then gravity. Steve grabbed her shoulders when she began sinking.

She stared at him, and she did so through her eyes. In her body.

Not-Steve was smiling at her in a cold, satisfied way.

“How-” her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat and began again. “How did you do that?”

He pushed her back, in a gentle but firm way, so she was sitting on the bed. Then he reached into a pocket and held out his hand to her. A shard of the Cosmic Cube.

“And now you know I really did wish for us to be together again,” he said.

A hope occurred to her, and she acted upon it before she had a chance to reveal it.

She looked up at him, at not-Steve, and let the hope and the bit of joy show on her face. If he was still reveling in the power of the Cosmic Cube, or if he believed strongly enough in her “weakness” for Steve-

He was standing close enough that when she stood up and put her arms around his neck, all he had to do was bend his head to kiss her. She kissed back fiercely, and then dropped her arms down his chest, low enough to tug at the hem of his shirt. It was his uniform-not designed for easy removal. She let a small, frustrated groan escape.

He laughed. One of his hands was holding her hip, the other in a fist behind her back.

“Will you-” she said, letting her frustration seep into her voice. “I haven’t had a body in months,” she complained. She grabbed the hand holding her hip and placed it against her breast. And even as driven as she was, she gasped at the sensation.

He sucked in a breath too, and she watched his eyes go dark. He pushed her down onto the bed again, and as she fell she breathed, “Yes.”

This moment, the awkward moment when he clambered into bed after her, was the moment she’d been waiting for. He was off-balance, and as distracted as she could hope for.

She had an excuse to surge up towards him, to grab at his hand, and to tear the shard out of his grip long enough to make a wish-

The world went blue again, and when the light cleared, the only thing that had changed was not-Steve’s facial expression. He was bewildered, stunned.

“Toni, I’m so sorry,” he said.

She rolled away from him, off the bed, and couldn’t get her body to cooperate- she hit the floor with a sharp pang of pain and must have cried out.

“Toni!” Steve said, and reached for her.

“Don’t touch me,” Toni snarled, and there was another flash of blue, and suddenly she was wearing her armor.

This last bit of magic was apparently too much for the shard- her armor registered a spike in temperature, and she instinctively hurled the stone into the empty side of the room. It glowed and dissipated, and not-Steve and Toni were left alone. 

He was standing now. Too near. She pointed her gauntlets at him, powered them up, and got out of his immediate range.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said again, and let his head fall. 

As if it were heavy with remorse. But then, not-Steve would know to fake that.

“I’m sorry too,” she said. “If I’d gotten my real wish, I wouldn’t have had to do this.”

And if she had any real guts, she would have done it instead of apologizing for it. She’d had plenty of time to set off the repulsors off.

Steve looked confused. Vulnerable. “What did you wish for? Didn’t you bring me back?”

He was looking into the armor’s face instead of her repulsors. She’d always been equally aghast at and in love with Steve’s courage. But in this man, it was arrogance. She did not love him. She could shoot him.

“I wished,” she said, glad that her armor’s voice modulators concealed the sob. “For you to be gone.”

And she didn’t need the Cosmic Cube to make this man, in a sense, go away. Her breath hitched and sped up because now she was picturing his body, because that wouldn’t disappear. But it wouldn’t be Steve’s body because this wasn’t Steve. Her repulsors hummed and she should just shoot him- he could get bored any moment and call out for help and then it would be too late.

“I think he is gone,” Steve said.

Toni froze.

“Mostly. I’m…I’m me now. But I have some flashes of memories…”

He seemed to withdraw at this point, curling into himself and sitting on the bed.

“What,” she began asking, and then stopped herself. She realized she’d fallen into his narrative. “What fucked-up mind games are you playing now?”

Steve had dropped his head into his hands and he was shaking it slowly back and forth.

“I did this,” Steve said, and his voice shook. “I…it was me.”

He looked up at her. There were tears in his eyes. She started trembling- it was impossible to not be aware of it, when her suit was compensating for the tiny movements.

“I forgive you,” he said, earnest and intense. “Okay, Toni? You’re doing the right thing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You have to kill me,” Steve said, still looking at her.

The world seemed to distort around those words. Her breathing, her heartbeat, were suddenly very loud to her. She wondered, at the back of her mind, if this would have been any easier without a body.

She heard Steve continue, but it sounded faint and distant. “I have some of his memories. I can’t keep the world safe from myself.”

This could be a trick, she reminded herself desperately. This could be acting and manipulation. Most likely. Mostly likely, it was a trick. 

But. There was a chance. A chance that this was Steve. That she had saved him after all. There was a slim chance that the shard of the Cosmic Cube had read the true wish in her heart. Not that she could wipe not-Steve out of existence. But that she could save Steve Rogers.

That made sense, right? That was how the Cosmic Cube worked.

She was pleading to herself, trying to justify this, because she would be gambling the world on this, if she put her repulsors down and let him live. She reminded herself of her responsibility. She reminded herself what Steve himself would wish for her to choose. She tried to remind herself that there was so much more to the world than this one person.

It wasn’t worth it.

The fate of the world wasn’t worth it, compared to the chance of saving Steve.

She powered down her gauntlets, fell to her knees, took off her helmet so she could breathe, and then had a proper, shuddering, panic attack. If she had chosen wrong, then not-Steve had thorough defeated her.

She saw Steve get up and start towards her, and she closed her eyes. He was either going to kill her or try to comfort her. It was out of her hands now.

But the moments stretched and breathing properly became gradually easier. The terror, the utter devastation, of remembering Steve’s death at her hands, dissipated. Steve hadn’t touched her either way. She looked up slowly, reluctantly, because she would have to face the consequences of her decision now.

Steve was a careful distance away. He was keeling on the ground instead of sitting on the bed now. His hands were fists on his lap and his eyes were on her.

“Toni,” he said, sounding relieved. 

His hands flexed, but when she gave them a wary look, he curled them into fists and crossed them slightly over his chest again. As if he were trying to present less of a threat. She looked at his face. It was creased with concern, and there were tear tracks down his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Just what she would have expected from a newly un-brainwashed Steve.

“Your henchmen haven’t come back,” she noted, and her voice was rough again.

Steve blushed and looked away from her. “They expected that we would- that we would not want to be disturbed for some time.”

Toni snorted. Steve looked at her again, surprised.

“He really thought he would sweep me off my feet.”

Steve’s shoulders sagged. “I’m so sorry for- for that,” he said, gesturing at the bed.

“You didn’t do anything,” she said.

“He was taking advantage of you,” he said.

“No he wasn’t. I kissed him. I grabbed his hand-” she stopped.

“Only because you were afraid,” Steve said. “He knew. I was inside his head.”

And yeah, knowing that for sure was chilling, but in the end it made no difference. “That’s not entirely true. He also thought I was attracted to him, and that I wanted sex in that particular moment. For whatever combination of reasons. Right?”

Steve gave a tiny nod, so she continued.

“He wanted me, and I used that, Steve. Me. I chose that. And it worked out for me. So let’s just put that in the past, okay?”

Her response only made him look more conflicted, but she was feeling too wrung out emotionally to reassure him further.

She felt the sudden urge to nap. It wasn’t going to happen, but at the very least she wanted to move freely. She thought, what the hell, and stepped out of the armor. Steve’s eyes widened as she emerged.

She realized as she stretched that her clothing had sleeves, though her AI self had been wearing a T-shirt. That realization sparked some curiosity in her new body, so she walked into the restroom to find a mirror. The sight there made her feel nauseous. She was wearing a light cotton version of Hydra-Steve’s uniform. Like fan merchandise. And if he’d dressed her differently…she looked at the rest of her body. The little asymmetries and flaws and the fainter scars in her face were gone. The curves of her body were a tiny bit more defined. This was her body as Hydra-Steve had wanted it.

Well, it had been a while since she’d had her body modified against her wishes.

She focused on the thing she could change. She walked out of the restroom asking Steve, “Do you think he owned anything without tentacles on it?” and then marched directly over to the closet to find out.

It was mostly back-up uniforms, including one Captain America uniform that she refused to look at. She grabbed one of the shirts intended to be worn under not-Steve’s body armor and switched it out for the shirt HYDRA-Steve had dressed her in. It was overly large on her, but at least it lacked any insignia and didn’t give her the same ‘PROPERTY OF HYDRA’ feeling.

“That’s better,” she said aloud. She grabbed another one of the same kind of shirt and tossed it to Steve- who was staring despondently into space, and jolted into awareness barely in time to catch it.

He looked down at it, once he had it.

“You’re not going to kill me,” he said. It wasn’t really a question.

She couldn’t hold back a shudder at the bleak surprise in his voice. “No. You’re going to help me clean up this mess.”

“What if you’re wrong to trust me?”

“Then we’ll burn in hell together.”

He considered that with the haunted look still on his face. She didn’t know how to comfort him. Didn’t know that she could. But she did know how to stop him feeling helpless.

“Tell me about his plans,” she said.

“He had ideas for the Cosmic Cube,” Steve said. “But he didn’t know how much he could do with it, and he wanted to wake you up from your coma first.”

“And he didn’t manage even that,” she said. She couldn’t help it- humor helped her cope with the sudden realization that she had two bodies and maybe two consciousnesses.

Steve frowned at her.

“My original body must still be in a coma somewhere. I’m pretty sure this is my AI self, but this isn’t my body,” she said, waving at it.

“What?” He hesitated and swept his eyes over her body. Obviously he wasn’t going to ask ‘are you sure?’ but he looked skeptical.

“You honestly can’t see it?”

“No.”

Hm. Well. Maybe this was just how Steve, and Hydra-Steve, saw her. It was a strangely comforting thought. At least he hadn’t deliberately redesigned her body. Fucking Cosmic Cube.

“So, what did he want me to build?”

Steve shrugged. “Nothing in particular.” He wasn’t meeting her eyes now.

“Then…he wanted some information? The armor?”

“No,” Steve said.

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would he want to bring me back so badly?”

Steve took a deep breath. “He loved you.”

Toni stared at him. If Steve had been in Hydra-Steve’s minds, and had access to his memories, then Steve knew the truth. And yet he was still saying this ridiculous thing.

“He was evil, and resentful of your effect on him,” Steve said. “But he loved you.”

That was painful to hear, and Toni didn’t understand why, for a moment. But as she remembered him smiling at her new body, she understood. It tore at her that only this twisted, evil version of Steve could want her, could feel anything like love for her.

She laughed at the cruel irony of that. Steve looked at her and seemed to shrink from the bitterness.

“What an asshat. He told me it was you who loved me. Of course he wouldn’t have the guts to tell me that he loved me.”

“What a coward,” Steve agreed wearily, watching her.

She tried to get ahold of herself in the following silence. Knowing that she was such a hypocrite. Luckily, they had shit to do.

“I almost forgot about my semi-magic armor. As practical as this has the potential to be, I gotta say, I am not happy at the ease with which the Cosmic Cube made it. Reality warping, I can deal with. Others making my armor? I am deeply troubled by that.”

Toni went back to the armor and began inspecting it as she babbled. It was comforting to be able to identify the model; one of the heavier ones built for thorough protection rather than grace. She was proud of her subconscious for pulling this one into existence.

“It’s my turtleshell armor,” she said. “I could survive a nuke in this thing. Or space. If this mission goes south, I can find you a space suit and tow both of us into orbit. Then we can try to hitchhike somewhere with an atmosphere and booze.”

“Toni?” Steve asked.

“Not that I want us to lose but maybe I’m overdue for a jaunt through space. Maybe it’s a post-coma existential crisis-”

“Toni.”

She gave up. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” Steve said.

“What?” It came out very sharp.

“I love you,” he repeated. She spun to face him. He did not seem to be joking. There was a frightened intensity to his eyes.

“Oh,” Toni said.

Steve waited.

“Oh no,” Toni said.

Steve cast his eyes down and his shoulders slumped the tiniest bit.

“I didn’t save you,” she explained. “I just made a different version of you. He messed with my body, I messed with your mind.”

She was too full of self-loathing and disgust to continue.

“No, you didn’t,” Steve said. “I’ve always loved you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Are you listening to yourself? Did I create a new set of memories for you?”

“No, I remember everything. Every fight. I loved you then and I love you now.”

Toni groaned and thunked her head against the armor.

“Toni,” Steve said.

Toni thunked her head off the armor again.

“Toni, stop hurting yourself,” he said, rising to his feet.

“I’m going to hell,” she said, ignoring him. “Maybe I’m already in hell. Maybe this is a coma dream. Or a simulation for my AI self.”

She thunked her head off the armor again to test that theory. Steve suddenly pulled her away from the armor.

“Stop,” he said, and let her go. “I’m sorry.”

“I think this is real,” she concluded, rubbing her forehead. “Pain is difficult to render realistically. Like resolution on graphics? It’s very difficult to balance that sensory input correctly. So. Probably not a simulation or a dream or a hallucination.”

“Is that what you were doing? Did you have to do it with your head?”

“Multitasking,” she said. “I really hate my life.”

He looked pained by that declaration, so she amended it.

“Sometimes.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for ever wrong thing I’ve done.”

“So let’s try to fix it. We’ve wasted enough time.”

“I meant to you personally. I’ sorry for all the ways I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry I’ve been so dishonest that now you can’t believe that I could love you.”

“Is that really a priority here?”

“Yes. You matter to me. I can’t-”

“Steve,” she interrupted. “The only reason you feel this way is because I brought you back using the Cosmic Cube.”

“What?”

“I love you,” she said “I’ve always loved you. And the Cosmic Cube makes desires real.”

“You love me?”

“Yes. I do. Because I’m a fucking hypocrite and a liar and coward just like him.”

Steve shook his head, looking dazed. “Just like me.”

He beamed at her, and she frowned back at the honest joy on his face. They were seriously screwed. He had no business looking so happy.

“We’ll get a magician to fix you,” she promised.

“There is nothing to fix. This is me,” he said. His eyes danced over her face, between her lips and her eyes. “May I kiss you?”

“No.”

He stepped back looking disappointed but still generally happy.

“We don’t have time for this,” she told him sternly. “We need to save the world from Hydra.”

“I’ll prove I love you with time, then,” he said.

“Hydra, remember? We need to save the world from Hydra.”

Steve nodded. “It’ll be easy. We’re together, on the same side again.”

Toni couldn’t help but smile back at him when he said that.

“And it’ll take them time to notice their supreme leader has changed.” Then his smile disappeared. “It might be easier to go unnoticed if you pretend that you defected to the side of evil.”

“Can’t I just be your kept woman? I don’t want to build anything for them.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“On the other hand, this might go faster if I build a Trojan Horse,” she said.

Steve grinned at her.


End file.
